LITTLE BLUE BOOK NO. 692
Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius
Homo-Sexual Life
William J. Fielding
LITTLE BLUE BOOK NO. 692
Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius
Homo-Sexual Life
William J. Fielding
Author of "The Caveman Within Us," "Sanity In Sex," "Health and Self-Mastery Through Psychoanalysis and Autosuggestion," "The Puzzle of Personality," "Autosuggestion—How It Works," "Psychoanalysis—The Key to Human Behavior," "Rejuvenation—Science's New Fountain of Youth," "Rational Sex Series," etc.
HALDEMAN-JULIUS COMPANY
GIRARD, RANSAS
Vol. IX
Rational Sex Series
William J. Fielding
Copyright, 1925
Haldeman-Julius Company
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
HOMO-SEXUAL LIFE
CHAPTER I.
COMPLEXITY OF SEX.
It has been stated that a person normally goes through three stages in the course of his sexual development—which are represented by the following dominant characteristics, in the order given: Autosexuality, Homosexuality, and Heterosexuality.
Each is normal at a certain stage of life. Circumstances, hereditary or environmental, or a combination of both (there is a vast amount of controversy about this phase of the subject), may halt the course of development at either the first or second stage, so that the final evolution of sexual life may never be realized.
This refers to the psychological and emotional aspects of sexual development, rather than the purely physical, as it is the former that sustains the shocks in the difficult process of the individual's social adjustment.
While there is a great deal of theoretical abstraction in such a broad survey of the sexual life, nevertheless, there are enough concrete facts at hand to make the conclusions as accurate and serviceable as any that are to be obtained within the realm of actual clinical practice. The sexual urge is by no means a simple, direct manifestation, but consists of many partial and often conflicting impulses, with ramifications that extend into every channel and byway of life.
AUTO-SEXUALITY, as the term implies, means that an individual's sexual interest is turned upon himself. This condition is normal to infants. It also is more pronounced in primitive and savage tribes, and has its analogy, in more practical form, in the lower order of the animal and vegetable world in those species whose individuals are self-sufficient sexually.
These types, which are capable of reproducing their kind without depending for fertilization upon another individual of the same species, are called hermaphrodites. This latter term, in its real sense, means combining the sexual organs of the two sexes.
There are some human beings—variants—who possess hermaphrodite characteristics, usually combining the more or less completely developed organs of one sex with the rudimentary organs of the opposite sex.
These hermaphrodite characters are not without their significance—namely, the innate bisexuality of man. While in the normal person, the attributes of one sex are dominant, there are always present in latent form some evidences of the opposite sex. This is no new discovery. In fact the concept of bisexuality is very ancient. Traces of it are to be found in Chinese mythology. The classical Greek mind seems to have had a particular interest in speculating about it. The mythical personification of bisexuality in the Hermaphroditos, the narrative of Aristophanes in the Platonic dialogue, and at a later period the suggestion of a Gnostic sect (Theophites) that primitive man was a "man-woman," are all based on this presentiment. The first divinities were always bisexual, being either women with a penis or men with a female breast.
WHAT BIOLOGY TEACHES US.
Lower down in the biological scale—in fact, at the very bottom—we find the amoeba, which represents an auto-sexual, or more accurately, a mono-sexual, form. It has all the potentialities for reproduction within itself. By the process of division, first of its nucleus, and then its whole self, it becomes two new individuals.
A little further up the evolutionary path, we find the paramoecium. At one stage of its career it will divide its nucleus first, and then itself (an autosexual act) similar to the amoeba. At another stage it will engage in an elementary sexual act by coming ventrally together with another paramoecium, exchange one-half of its nucleus for half the nucleus of the other paramoecium, through the mouth, and this process is followed by other nuclear changes, and finally each paramoecium divides itself into two new entities.
There is no apparent difference between these primitive little animals. They have no male and female organs, but it is a plausible assumption that the nuclei of each one contains a "male" and "female" portion—something unknown but necessary to procreation. In this instance we have the beginning of bisexuality; but autosexuality is still an essential factor in reproduction.
Somewhat higher up the scale we come across the hydra, a multicellular animal. Here, also, autosexuality plays a prominent role. The hydra can, without the aid of another, "bud off" a new living hydra. Bisexuality is evidenced, however, in the presence of male and female cells which form in the single hydra. These unite with one another to produce a new individual in true bisexual manner. In a sense this creature is a combination of the autosexual, bisexual and hermaphrodite.
Another step up the evolutionary ladder we find the earthworm. Each worm has the organs of the two sexes—the equivalent of testes and ovaries,—properly developed, but each worm needs another worm to induce fertilization. In this instance, we have true hermaphroditism, and bisexuality is definitely established. However, as the two worms are of the same sex—each being male as well as female—they are in that way homosexual, as well, being attracted by worms of similar constitution.
As life grows more complex and we ascend the biological scale, the sexual processes also become more ramified, until in the higher forms of life we find the sexual nature of the individuals of the different genera and species sharply differentiated.
But even in the highest form of life, there are the vestigal organs and characters of the opposite sex, so that while the normal human being has a definite sexual category, it is just as truly apparent that no individual is wholly of one sexual character. The most masculine man is not one hundred per cent masculine, nor is the most feminine woman one hundred per cent feminine. The proof of this will be shown as we proceed in our discussion.
The physical bisexual characters—those of the opposite sex being present in rudimentary form—are readily observable. In the male, there are the vestigial breasts and nipples, and other rudimentary features less prominent; and sometimes a general feminine contour of body is noticeable in the male.
The most feminine of women have a growth of colorless hair, called the "lanugo," corresponding to the male beard. If the woman has a larger proportion of masculine chemistry in her make-up, this hirsute growth may be quite prominent; and in some cases very pronounced, as in the instance of the bearded ladies who exhibit themselves in shows and circuses. Women with a more or less definite masculine cast of figure, movement, manner and voice are commonplace;—as is the opposite phenomenon —effeminate men.
The psychological phases of bisexualism parallel the physical. We might even go farther and state they are more in evidence than the physical, as they are subject to modification by environmental influences to a degree far exceeding the physical.
As was observed in the opening paragraph of this chapter, the individual may suffer a retardation or fixation at any stage of the sexual development, which holds him back into another and more primitive psychical and emotional level, which he has chronologically outgrown.
All infants and small children are autosexual, and evidence a sexual interest in their bodies. Sometimes this is true in only a slight, almost casual, degree; other times it is pronounced, and becomes a problem. There is often a tendency toward automatic masturbation, or other forms of so-called sexual precocity, which may unduly alarm parents. However, it is well for parents to know that these manifestations are not abnormal—unless grossly over-emphasized—but are merely indicative of the passing stage of autosexuality. They will in due course be outgrown and replaced by other manifestations of sexual interest, unless unwise methods of repression are used.
HOMOSEXUALITY means a state in which one is sexually attracted toward members of the same sex. This is normally a primitive characteristic of childhood, which prevails up to the time of adolescence, but which may persist in adult life. Some degree of it does normally hold over in every adult, but it remains in the background of the unconscious, and is sublimated along social lines.
Young boys and young girls usually have little interest in the opposite sex—in fact, are frequently quite scornful of them. On the other hand, they form strong friendships with members of their own sex, and, as is well known, when their sexual interests have not been successfully sublimated, engage in mutual sexual practices and masturbation.
Before the full development of the genital organs, the sexual tendencies are predominantly homosexual, although the influence of the preceding stage (autosexuality) is still considerably in evidence, and there is also present the germ of the succeeding stage of heterosexuality (erotic desires toward members of the opposite sex). If the youth has been reared in a healthy, constructive environment, conducive to proper sublimation of his primitive sexual tendencies, and particularly if his libido is not excessive, he may scarcely be conscious of his homosexual impulses. On the other hand, if he is endowed with an unusually strong hereditary sexual constitution, or if the repression and sublimation have been faulty in his upbringing, the homosexual tendencies may reflect themselves in various ways in his conscious attitudes.
It should be borne in mind that there is no abrupt line of demarcation between these stages of development. They overlap, and some of each of them, even the most primitive and infantile, are carried over in the unconscious mind throughout adult life. In the normal, well-adjusted adult, there are still extant rudiments of the previous stages of the emotional and affective life, just as the body contains vestiges of the bisexual organism, from which it evolved in the early weeks of intrauterine life.
The predominant homosexual element or primitive emotional character asserts itself in various typical forms that are apparent to those informed upon the subject. In this connection, Bousfield states: "Cruelty on the part of boys at school (bullying) is nearly always a sexual manifestation which, like homosexuality, should be only a passing phase, which is later repressed into the unconscious. The monks who denied themselves sexual intercourse, but found pleasure in flogging themselves or others, form an example of the way that sexual energy, when denied its normal course, finds a more primitive outlet. A schoolmaster with repressed and unconscious homosexuality will often be noted for his flogging proclivities, and so forth. Children, more especially boys, are observed to have an instinct of cruelty; for example, they pull the wings off flies. The sport of the chase or of fishing serves to gratify the instinct in adults.
Prominent in the classification of adolescent homosexual attraction are the school-friendships of girls, which are known variously as "crushes," "flames," and "raves." Elaborate romances are sometimes bound up in these attachments, with their love at first-sight, courtship, love letters, jealousy, and other manifestations of erotic affection. Havelock Ellis states that while these alliances are sometimes sexual, they are often not so—but are full of "psychic erethism."
CHAPTER II.
THEORIES ABOUT HOMO-SEXUALITY.
Some of the greatest sexologists and psychiatrists of modern times have concerned themselves with the causative factors of homosexuality. So much new material relating to unconscious mental activities has been uncovered in recent years, that many of the older authorities, whose opinions have long carried much weight, are now considered obsolete, at least in respect to homosexual problems.
Krafft-Ebing, for instance, a widely quoted authority, and still a factor through his works in influencing both the profession and laymen, originally conceived homosexuality as the result of a hereditary transmission. This contention has never been fully corroborated by the observations of later investigators.
To this extent only is homosexuality an inherited trait beyond fear of any contradiction: Everybody inherits homosexual tendencies.
As we observed in the previous chapter, every child is homosexual in disposition. Therefore, heredity per se does not give us the key to the problem, except possibly in those instances where the hereditary constitution furnishes certain predisposing factors to homosexuality. And this predisposition may be overcome, wholly or in part, in a healthy, constructive environment; or it may be cultivated in the opposite kind of environment.
From this standpoint, heredity may furnish a favorable soil—for almost anything. The crop that is harvested depends upon the seeds that are sown, and the care that is given, or the injuries that are sustained, through environment. Consider for a moment how fertile a breeding ground for the homosexual disposition is the homelife presided over by certain types of nervous and psychopathic parents!
Even more in error is Krafft-Ebing in associating homosexuality with the early habit of masturbation. This is largely confusion of cause and effect. Perhaps all homosexuals are found to have masturbated in childhood—ergo, masturbation is a sign of homosexuality! This explanation, of course, leaves entirely out of consideration the innumerable persons who have masturbated in childhood and have become normal heterosexual adults.
"Nothing is more likely," states Krafft-Ebing, "than masturbation so to disturb and occasionally thwart all noble emotions at the source as they arise spontaneously out of the sexual feeling. The habit robs the nascent feeling of charm and beauty, leaving behind only the husk of grossly animal craving for sexual gratification. An individual, so thwarted, attains the age of maturity lacking the esthetic, ideal, pure and undefiled longing which leads to the other sex. At the same time, the heat of sensuous passion cools off while the inclination toward the other sex is significantly weakened. Thus, deficiency embraces the morals, the ethics, the phantasy and the disposition of the youthful masturbator as well as his emotional and instinctive life, and holds true of both sexes, occasionally reducing to zero the yearning after the opposite sex, so that in the end masturbation is preferred to every other form of gratification."
Dr. Stekel has answered this statement very effectively in the following words (from "Bisexual Love," translated by James Van Teslaar, M.D.): "This contention is altogether wrong. I have never seen so many and such pronounced idealists as among masturbators. Young artists, poets and musicians in particular often show, I have found, a strong tendency to masturbation, and this agrees with the pronounced bisexuality of all artists, which has been particularly pointed out by Fliess. The youths of this type are often so delicate and sensitive that they see in the sexual act only animal brutality and hide their own sexuality from the whole world. Among masturbators we find the champions of truth, the over-moralistic preachers, the ethical reformers and dreamers."
If Krafft-Ebing's theory of masturbation being an index of homosexuality were true, it might well be set forth as a demonstrable fact, in the hope that this knowledge would be a stepping-stone to constructive results in our understanding of the sexual life. However, in addition to being a fallacious conception, it has the further discredit of probably having wrought great damage to masturbating youths in giving them a false and hopeless impression of their actual situation. If a youth in his effort to overcome masturbation, believes himself, in addition, to be a predestined victim of homosexuality—especially with the prevailing social stigma which that condition carries—the injurious effect may quite conceivably be disastrous.
Magnus Hirschfeld, one of the greatest of contemporary authorities on the sex question in all its phases, is convinced that homosexuality is a normal state, and that genuine homosexuality is always an inborn condition. His views may be summed up in the statement that there is a genuine inborn homosexuality which must not be considered a morbidity. Furthermore, it should not be confused either with bisexuality or with pseudo-sexuality.
Those who look upon homosexuality from the psycho-pathological viewpoint are in agreement to this extent—that the homosexual condition is not a product of degeneration in the ordinary sense, but, rather, a neurosis.
Stekel states emphatically, "I have never yet found a homosexual who was not a neurotic.
The relationship of neurosis and homosexuality is set forth by the same authority as follows:
(a) Pronounced physical and mental stigmata of degeneration are relatively rare among homosexual men and women; at any rate such signs are not more frequent in proportion to the total number of homosexuals than among the heterosexuals of both sexes.
(b) On the other hand, we find frequently and not merely as a result of homosexuality, a greater instability of the nervous system (frequently shown in the periodic character of endogenous temperamental instability.)
(c) The family of the homosexual often contains a larger number of nervous persons and such as deviate from the normal sexual type.
This latter observation, of course, tends to give homosexuality an hereditary aspect, which is Hirschfeld's opinion. But, when analyzed, this may mean that a nervous or neurotic disposition is inherited, which, under certain environmental conditions (the negative attitude of parents, the dominant mother, etc.) leads to a homosexual goal.
Dr. Iwan Bloch, who has world-wide standing as a sexologist, gives the following interesting opinion:
1. The so-called "undifferentiated" stage of the sexual instinct is often eliminated when the instinct becomes directed toward a definite particular sex among heterosexuals or homosexuals before the advent of puberty. Homosexuality shows a definite, clear direction of the sexual instinct towards the same sex long before puberty.
2. A comprehensive theory of homosexuality must also explain the extreme cases, particularly male homosexuality coupled with complete virility.
3. Sexual parts and genital glands cannot determine homosexuality in those possessing typical normal male genitalia and testicles; neither can the brain itself be the determining factor in genuine homosexuality, because homosexuality cannot be rooted out by the strongest conscious and unconscious heterosexual influences brought to bear upon thought and phantasy,—the condition developing in spite of such influences.
4. Since as a predisposition (not as sexual instinct) homosexuality appears long before puberty and before the actual functioning of the respective genital glands, it suggests that in homosexuals some physiologic action pertaining to "sexuality," but not necessarily related to the functioning of the genital glands, undergoes some subtle change as the result of which the sexual instinct is turned from its goal.
5. The condition suggests chemical changes, alteration in the chemistry of sexual tension, the latter being fairly independent of the activity of the sexual glands proper, as is shown by the fact that it may be preserved among eunuchs and others who undergo castration. Krafft-Ebing, Hirschfeld and Bloch, as well as many other investigators and writers, have failed to appreciate the psychological factors involved in homosexuality. Every young individual unconsciously patterns its conduct, especially in the matter of its attitudes toward persons of the opposite sex, after some one in the home environment. When the boy, for instance, is raised under conditions which cause him to pattern his actions after the mother-model, to feel himself woman-like, he will unconsciously and automatically imitate feminine ways and adopt woman's attitudes, in the sexual sphere as well as otherwise.
To illustrate this point, if a boy is brought up by a widowed mother, let us say, in a home environment in which there is no male present, the young boy, impelled to imitate some one in order to establish a standard of conduct, copies his mother's attitude of physical indifference to women and physical interest in men (if she is a normally constituted woman). If the mother, or other feminine guardian, should be homosexually disposed, i.e., showing a physical interest in women and a physical indifference to men, then, by the same token, the boy would tend to develop a sexual interest in women, and become a normal heterosexual man.
Every young boy's ambition, normally, is to be like his father; later, it may be to excel the father—but this identification, under the circumstances, is present. Now, the absence of a father in the house, or the presence of a father of weak character, who suffers in comparison with the mother, tends to force the youth to make his ego-ideal identification with the mother, with results that are not conducive to normality in the sexual life.
Under the latter condition, the youth associates the mother with sex domination and personal power—it is a woman-dominated world. Consequently there is also present the attitude, either of wishing to be a woman and rule, or of fleeing from woman when she clashes with his will to power as man.
Anyone who knows the dynamic influence that mental processes, particularly the unconscious ones, have over the physical organism and its far-reaching manifestations, will recognize at once the possibilities that are bound up in this situation.
We see this same principle every day, and in fact apply it (in the opposite manner to obtain the opposite results), when we inculcate manly ideas in the minds of our boys and encourage them to conduct themselves in a manly way, in order to develop in them the attributes of manliness. With girls, we foster the womanly ideal and encourage them in the direction of proper feminine conduct to promote the accredited qualities of womanhood.
We also see evidenced at times the wish to remain a child, and to retain the privileges and attentions of childhood, which apply to neurotic persons. This notably interferes with their development and progress toward adulthood.
Stekel tells us that when a boy acts like a girl, it does not necessarily mean that he has that kind of a predisposition. It may only signify his identification with his mother or with a sister, whom he unconsciously accepts as a model to pattern his conduct after.
It is the conviction of Sadger that permanent homosexuality is established through some significant incident which leads to the repression of the mother in her role as helper and teacher. Among such incidents may be death, sudden financial reverses, and consequent neurosis, making sanatorium treatment necessary, inconsiderate persecution of the boy on account of masturbation, and similar psychic shocks. Sadger's conclusions may be summed up as follows:
(a) The urning is a victim of withdrawal from the mother (the first caretaker or nurse, respectively), in whom he is himself seriously disappointed. He represses the mother by identifying himself completely with her.
(b) The path to homosexuality leads through narcissism—that is, love of self, as one was, or as one may ideally be.
(c) The sexual ideal of the invert includes not only traits of former female and male sexual objectives, but also features of one's own beloved self.
(d) Being brought up in surroundings exclusively feminine—the father does not count in such circumstances—fosters homosexuality in the male as well as in the female, for reasons that are not sufficiently clear as yet. Moreover, the urning is usually an only child.
(e) Finally, inversion may be fostered by a sort of "latter-day obedience" to the mother's commands. I have observed not rarely that mothers warn their children against harmless, though warm and friendly contact with the other sex, as something unpermissible and bad and that the teaching thus instilled may unfortunately increase the disposition towards one's own sex through later obedience.
As Stekel has well stated, in commenting upon Sadger's conclusions, the first of these is false, because the homosexual is not a victim of withdrawal from the mother, but rather of a fixation upon her. Further, one does not repress a person when one identifies one's self. Identification is direct love; differentiation means repression. Where homosexuals (male) identify themselves with the mother—as many of them do—there may also be present a repression of the father-ideal.
Alfred Adler, whose conception of the neurosis is based on the hypothesis of "the male protest" also associates homosexuality with this principle. In his opinion, all reactions and protective constructions or fixations of the neurotic are based on the wish to be "a complete being" as he sees it. Homosexuality exemplifies this protest in a singular form. The homosexual's ambition is (in its unconscious implications): I want to be a woman! This, according to Adler, is a male protest under the use of female means. He maintains that the homosexual attempts by this means to enhance his strength of personality. The latter turns away from woman because he fears his inferiority. He fears the sexual partner. Fear, shame, hate and disgust are the inhibitions which drive the homosexual away from the opposite sex.
Adler mentions that the over-valuation of the homosexual partner serves also to raise the neurotic invert in his own estimation. Thus, in neuroses, homosexuality, even when carried into practice, is always found to be a symbol by means of which it is sought to place the individual's own superiority beyond question. This mechanism is similar to that of a religious psychosis, in which the fancied nearness to God has the significance of an elevation. In a sense, the religious fanatic identifies himself with God, just as the non-religious psychopath may identify himself with Napoleon, Caesar, Alexander the Great, or some other character in history whose personality completely dominated its environment.
Syphilophobia (fear of syphilis) is one of the forms which the fear of women is especially likely to take. The attitude of such phobists is usually as follows: They fear that they will not be able to play a dominating part in regard to women because of some feeling of inferiority, for which they have all sorts of imaginary foundations, at times without conscious motivation. In this manner, following the increasing trend to belittle woman, they arrive at suspicious trains of thought which are to secure them against sexual relations. Sometimes a woman is a riddle, sometimes a criminal person, or a shallow spend-thrift, always thinking of adornment and similar vanities, and sexually insatiable.
The suspicions constantly arise that woman is a crafty and cunning being, bent on evil. This conception is universal and is found in all periods of history. As Adler states, "They emerge in the most sublime and lowest creations of art, have a place in the thoughts and efforts of the wisest, and create in man and in society a constant predisposition which develops suspicious and cautious traits, in order always to keep in touch with the enemy and to be in good time for the defense against knavish attacks. It is an error to think that it is only the man who harbors distrust of the sexual partner. The same trait is found also in the woman, often less distinct in character, when fictions of her own strength put a check to the doubt of her own value, but flashing up most strongly when the feeling of degradation becomes overpowering."
The detraction of woman, which recurs so constantly in Jewish, Christian and Mohammedan religious writings and usages, undoubtedly has this psychological impulse, behind it. The medieval disputes as to whether woman had a soul, or, indeed, whether she was really a human being at all; the hideous persecution and burning of women as witches and vampires, which was participated in by church, state and populace,—all of these practices had behind them in some degree a neurotic fear of woman as the sexual partner. Man feared his inferiority, and he compensated for that fear by subjecting, and often eliminating, the object of his phobia. By this irrational gesture, he symbolically raised himself to a position of greater security.
Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1825-1895), a brilliant and learned man and able legal official of Hanover, Germany, for many years expounded and defended homosexual love. He was himself an invert, and made many attempts to secure a revision of the legal position of the sexual invert in Germany.
Ulrichs formulated an elaborate classification of human types, with an interesting nomenclature, which despite its elaborateness has been found serviceable.
Among males, he classifies the normal man as the "Dioning," and the invert as the "Urning."[1] Urnings are subdivided into several groups. First, those who are thoroughly manly in appearance and mental habit and character ("Mannlings") and who tend to love softer and younger specimens of their own sex; second, those who are effeminate in appearance and cast of mind ("Weiblings"), who love rougher and older men; third, those who are of medium type ("Zwischen Urnings") and love young men.
Then there are "Urano-Dionings," who have the capacity of love in both directions, that is, for women and for men. These are generally of a manly type.
Besides these there are some sub-species, such as the "Uraniaster," who is a normal man who has acquired the urning habit; and the "Virilized Urning," who is an Urning who has gotten the normal habit, although, according to Ulrichs' classification, this is not really natural to him.
A better conception of the whole arrangement may be obtained from the following table:
| The Human Male |
(a) |
Normal Man or Dioning—called Uraniaster when he acquires Urning tendencies. | ||||
| (b) | Urning | 1. | Mannling. | |||
| 2. | Zwischen-Urning. | |||||
| 3. | Weibling. | |||||
| 4. |
Also called Virilized Urning when he acquires the normal habit. | |||||
| (c) | Urano-dioing. | |||||
Edward Carpenter states that if we add to this a corresponding table for the female, we shall have an idea of the complication of Ulrichs' system! Yet, complex as it is, and whatever criticisms we may make upon it, we must allow that it does not exceed the complexity of the real facts of Nature.
As we observe from the foregoing, there are many and conflicting ideas regarding homosexuality, but I believe no concept of this phenomenon is so satisfactory as that based on psychoanalytical data, as developed from the teachings of Freud.
Taking into consideration the findings of all the analysts, it seems to me that Stekel's conception of the problem, summarized as follows, is pre-eminently the most logical and valid:
"All persons originally are bisexual in their predisposition. There is no exception to this rule. Normal persons show a distinct bisexual period up to the age of puberty. The heterosexual then represses his homosexuality. He also sublimates a portion of his homosexual cravings in friendship, nationalism, social endeavors, gatherings, etc. If this sublimation fails him he becomes neurotic, since no person overcomes completely his homosexual tendencies. Everyone carries within himself the predisposition to neurosis. The stronger the repression, the stronger is also the neurotic reaction which may be powerful enough in its extreme form to lead to paranoia. If the heterosexuality is repressed, homosexuality comes to the forefront. In the case of the homosexual, the repressed and incompletely conquered heterosexuality furnishes the disposition toward neurosis. The more thoroughly his heterosexuality is sublimated the more completely the homosexual presents the picture of a normal healthy person. He then resembles the normal heterosexual. But like the normal heterosexual individual, even the 'male hero' type displays a permanent latent disposition to neurosis.
"The process of sublimation is more difficult in the case of the normal homosexual than in the case of the normal heterosexual. That is why this type is extremely rare and why a thorough analysis always discloses typical neurotic reactions. The neurotic reactions of expression are anxiety, fear, shame, disgust and hatred. The heterosexual is inspired with disgust at any homosexual act. That proves his affectively determined negative attitude. For disgust is but the obverse of attraction. The homosexual manifests the same feeling of disgust for woman, showing him to be a neurotic. (Or else he hates woman). For the normal homosexual—if there be such a type—would be indifferent towards woman. These generalizations already show that the healthy person must act as a bisexual being."
My only criticism of Stekel's ideas is to call attention to the fact that, being a medical psychologist, his whole experience has been practically with those types whose neurotic tendencies have been emphasized. There are and have been a great many inverts who have not only enjoyed average mental and physical health—but have been versatile and productive in their accomplishments. Chapter V is devoted to the achievements of the better types of inverts. Many have been brilliantly endowed, have attained outstanding success in the arts and sciences, and even in the military field, as well as in other spheres of activity.
CHAPTER III.
HOMO-SEXUALITY IN HISTORY.
It has been mentioned on another page that the problem of bisexuality, in a more or less general manner, has engaged the attention of observers for ages. The specific phenomenon of homo-sexuality has been even more closely studied, dramatized, romanced about, and even idealized.
No less a luminary and distant character than Plato expressed himself in the following words regarding the subject under discussion (quoted from Plato's Banquet, chapters VIII and IX) "There is no Aphrodites without an Eros. But there are two goddesses. The older Aphrodites came into existence without a mother; being the daughter of Zeus and Diana and is called Pandemos. The Eros of the former must, therefore, be Uranos, that of the latter Pandemos. With the love of Eros Pandemos the ordinary human beings love; Eros Uranos did not choose a female, but a male; this is the love for boys. Whoever is inspired with this love turns to the male sex."
Herodotus, the Greek historian, who seemed possessed of omnipresence, because he appeared to have been everywhere and seen everything in the known world of his time, described definite characteristics indicative of homo-sexuality. Thus, writing of the Scythians, he referred to a "peculiar disease," the symptoms of which were these: That certain of the men became effeminate in character, put on female garments, did the work of women, and even became effeminate in appearance.
In attempting an explanation of this abnormality of the Scythians, Herodotus fell back on the myth that the goddess Venus, angered by the plundering of the temple at Ascalon by the Scythians, had made women of these plunderers and their posterity.
Herodotus also made the curious remark, with respect to these effeminate Scythians, whom he called Enarees or Androgyni, "that they were endowed by Venus with the power of divination," and were consulted by the King of the Scythians when the latter was ill.
Hippocrates, the "Father of Medicine," having no faith in supernatural causes of disease, ascribed the cause to impotence. He attributed it, however incorrectly, as due to the custom of the Scythians to have themselves bled behind the ears in order to cure an affliction brought about by excessive horse-back riding. It was his theory that these veins were of great importance in the preservation of the sexual powers, and that when they were severed, impotence followed.
The Scythians so afflicted, however, believing their impotence due to divine punishment and beyond human aid, donned the garb of females and lived as women among women.
It is thought that fear of excess population on the part of the early Greeks was one factor in turning their erotic interests from women to young men. As the so-called Greek states of that period consisted principally of cities with very limited capacity for sustenance, the problem of feeding the population was one of some concern. Aristotle, on this account, advised the men to shun their wives and to indulge in boy-love. Even before him, Socrates had already hailed pederasty as a mark of superior culture.
Diotima revealed to Socrates a new spiritual principle in erotic life—the principle which guides man beyond the pleasures of the senses and, through love, leads him to the divine. "The slave of his senses runs after women; but he who loves with his soul and strives to win immortality through virtue and wisdom, seeks a great and beautiful soul that he may surrender himself to it completely." This looks innocent enough on the surface, but as it was the opinion of the Greeks that a beautiful soul was to be found only in the body of a man, the implications are clear.
Dr. Beatrice M. Hinkle (The Re-Creating of the Individual) remarks that "The symbol of this human ideal achievement for the Greek was the psychic hermaphrodite, the blend of feminine and masculine attributes in a male form and its immortalization was attrained in Greek art. The homosexuality flourished as the natural accompaniment of man's love for himself—that is, of his own sex—was an incidental result which does not affect the real significance of the Greek achievement, nor alter the greatness of their ideal aim, the creation of the highest human values under the conception of ideal love, and the effort at its achievement in the world of reality. . . The 'great and beautiful soul' could only be found in the male form—women belonged to the animal sphere and could contribute only to the sensual pleasure of man."
As the women were neglected by the men, the former tended to engage in erotic practices among members of their own sex. In the island of Lesbos, the women were especially given to indulging in the love of their own sex—from which historic precedent we get the term Lesbian Love.
Sappho, the Lesbian Nightingale, who lived about 600 B. C. was the principal representative and has remained the classical oracle of this form of erotic expression. In her Ode to Venus, she sings fervently of her passions:
"Thou who rulest all, upon flowers enthroned,
Daughter of Zeus, born of foam, thou artful one,
Hark to my call.
Not in anguish and bitter suffering, O goddess,
Let me perish!—"
The Hellenic conception of beauty was quite invariably realized in the male form, with a characteristic touch of bisexuality—almost a modified hermaphroditism. The sculpture of the period, and of subsequent periods, whenever it has been influenced by the Greeks, shows this tendency. Both Apollo and Dionysus are represented with male and female attributes. The female figures approach the masculine in the cast of their features as well as in their bodily proportions.
As the growing boy comes nearest to combining the male and female lines, the blending of these in sculpture realized the ideal of classical Greek art.
A striking example of the combining of the male and female attributes is seen in the Apollo in the temple at Delphi—one of the foremost seats of prophesy and divination in the old world. Apollo, who presided at this shrine, was a queer blend of masculine and feminine characters. He was frequently represented as being very feminine in form, particularly in the more archaic statues.
Apollo was the patron of song and music. He was, too, a representative divinity of the Uranian love, being the special god of the Dorian Greeks, who seem to have been responsible for establishing the custom of invert love in that country. It was said of Apollo that to expiate his pollution by the blood of the Python, whom he slew, he became the slave and devoted favorite of Admetus.
Muller described a Dorian religious festival, in which a boy, taking the part of Apollo, "probably imitated the manner in which the god, as herdsman and slave of Alcestis, submitted to the most degrading service."
The opinion is expressed by Dr. Iwan Bloch in his great work, "Die Prostitution" that homosexuality, on account of its strange and inexplicable character, was accounted by primitive people as something divine and miraculous. To the homosexual man or woman were therefore attributed supernatural powers. In this respect, the homosexual had characteristics in common with the primitive gods, which probably accounts for the ancients venerating their inverts.
Bloch says on this score: "This riddle, which despite all our efforts, present-day science has not yet satisfactorily solved, must to the primitive intelligence have appeared even more inexplicable than to us; and a man born with the inclination toward his own sex must have been regarded as something extraordinary, as one of those strange freaks of Nature which among Primitives are so easily accounted divine marvels and honored as such. The by no means scanty supply of ethnological facts on this subject which we possess confirms the above view, and shows in what odor of sanctity homosexual individuals have often stood among Nature-folk—for which reason they frequently played an important part in religious rituals and festivals."
It was the theory of Adolf Bastian, a German authority, that the priests among early peoples, as representatives of the bisexual principle in Nature, encouraged homosexual rites in the temples on the same footing as heterosexual rites.
"The men," stated Bastian, "prayed to the powers of Nature, and the women, in privacy and retirement, to the feminine powers—while the priests, who had to satisfy the demands of both parties, learned the idea of sex changes from the Moon, and served the masculine gods in masculine attire, and the goddesses in feminine garments, or set up images of a bearded-Venus and of a Hercules active as spinning at the wheel."
Practically all the ancient deities, at one time or another, seem to have been invested with bisexual characters. Even Venus or Aphrodite was sometimes worshipped in the dual form. Frazer in his Adonis, etc., states that in Cyprus there was a bearded and masculine image of Venus in female attire, and that according to Philochorus, the deity thus represented was the moon. Sacrifices were offered to him or her by men clad as women, and by women clad as men.
This bearded female deity is sometimes also referred to as Aphroditus, or as Venus Mylitta. While the worship of bearded goddesses was practiced principally in Cyprus and Syria, Egypt also had a representation of a bearded Isis, with the infant Horus in her lap.
In the Orphic hymns, we find the following bisexual features and powers attributed to the deities:
"Zeus was the first of all, Zeus last, the lord of the lightning;
Zeus was the head, the middle, from him all things were created;
Zeus was Man, and again Zeus was the Virgin Eternal."
In another passage, Adonis is addressed thus:
"Hear me, who pray to thee, hear me, O many-named and best of deities,
Thou, with thy gracious hair . . . both maiden and youth, Adonis."
Boy-love is believed to have been introduced in Hellas by the Dorians, as in the pre-Doric period (Homer, for instance), the custom of homosexual practice had as yet no roots as an institution.
In Greece, boy-love was the privilege of the elect only, being permitted to the free citizen, the knight. Slaves were forbidden to indulge in the practice, often under penalty of death. Strict rules were formulated for the regulation of the practice, which in time took on the aspect of a social institution, fostered and approved by the state.
In Sparta the lovers were held to a strict accounting for their "companions" who became attached to them from their twelfth year; so that they, and not their young companions, were punished for any shameful act on the part of the latter.
The choice of boy-lovers in Crete took the form of bridal theft. The lover advised the boy's family of his intention of stealing the boy. If the family did not like the "match," it tried to avoid the capture of the youth; but on the other hand if the alliance was considered a desirable one, the "romance" was encouraged. The higher the lover's social position the greater was the honor felt by the boy and the family. Afterwards, the chosen one was sent home bearing gifts.
So established was the practice upon the rock of social convention that it was considered a shame for a boy to possess no knightly lover. It was a great honor, on the other hand, for a youth to be coveted by numerous lovers. Repelling a wooing knight was considered ignominious—a blot on one's honor.
In Crete, Thebes and Thera, these unions enjoyed religious sanction. The engagement of the lovers, or at least their physical attachment, was accorded the protection of some god or hero. In Thebes, upon the holy promontory near the City, some 50 to 70 meters from the temple of Apollo Karneies and on the sacred site dedicated to Zeus, there is a chiselled inscription, which bears these words: "On this holy place, under the protection of Zeus, Krion has consummated his union with the son of Bathykles and proclaiming it proudly to the world dedicates to it this imperishable memorial. And many Thereans with him, and after him, have united themselves with their boys on this same holy spot."
Referring to Rome in the time of the emperors, during which time lewdness and debauchery assumed forms that could only have been inspired by moral insanity, Bebel states that men and women vied with each other in immorality. The number of public brothels increased rapidly, and besides "Greek love" (Pederasty) was practiced more and more by the men. As an indication of the extent of homosexual indulgence, at one time the number of male prostitutes in Rome was greater than the number of female prostitutes.
Later, when the pendulum swung the other way, repressive measures were taken to stamp out the practice of homosexuality. Both Constantine and Theodosius enacted legislation against sexual inversion, even going to the extent of committing the offenders to "avenging flames." These statutes, however, were not rigidly enforced, and modern opinion on the question may be said to have come from Justinian's enactments.
HOMO-SEXUALITY AMONG PRIMITIVE
PEOPLE.
Among primitive tribes, religious rites and ceremonies in association with homosexual acts have long been observed, Dr. W. A. Hammond reports that the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico cultivate so-called "mujerados," of which one is required in every tribe of this group. They plays an important role in the Spring religious festivals—which, from the modern viewpoint, are really orgies—in which pederasty figures prominently. These Saturnalia naturally were guarded with the greatest secrecy from the observation of outsiders.
To cultivate a mujerado, a very powerful man is chosen, and he is induced to masturbate excessively and ride horseback constantly. This combination of activities gradually produces an irritable weakness of the genital organs, resulting in great loss of semen. Paralytic impotence follows this condition of chronic irritability, and finally atrophy of the testicles and penis sets in. This condition is accompanied by characteristic physical changes; the beard falls out, the voice looses its depth and volume and physical strength and energy decrease. The disposition and inclinations become feminine. Thenceforth, the mujerado loses his position in society as a man. He adopts feminine customs and manners, and associates quite exclusively with women. Notwithstanding his effeminization, he is for religious reasons, held in honor. It is probable that at other times of the year than during the festival occasions, he is used by the chiefs for pederasty.
Hammond was privileged to examine two mujerados. One, then thirty-five years of age, had undergone his metamorphosis seven years previously, when he was fully masculine and potent. Gradually atrophy of the testicles and penis came about, and concurrently he lost his potency and the power of erection. At the time of examination he differed in no way in dress or manner from the women with whom he associated. In contrast to the degeneration of his genital organs, he had developed large breasts like a pregnant women, and claimed that he had nursed several children whose mothers had died. The other mujerado, who was then thirty-six years of age, had been effeminate for ten years. He presented the same general peculiarities as the one already referred to, but with less development of the mammary glands. Like the first, his voice was high-pitched and thin, and the body plump.
The relation of excessive horse-back riding to underdevelopment of the male genitals has been noted by many authorities. The Apaches and Navajos, who spend practically all their waking hours on horse-back are remarkable for small genitals and mild libido and vitality. Kraproth and Chotomski record that even at the present time impotence is very prevalent among the Tartars, which was attributed to riding on unsaddled horses.
Westermarck, in his monumental work, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas, remarks, in describing the Koriaks: "Krashenininikoff makes mention of the Ke'yen, that is men occupying the position of concubines, and he compared them with the Kamchadale (a Behring's Strait Tribe) Koe'kcuc, as he calls them, that is men transformed into women. Every Koe'kcuc is regarded as a magician and interpreter of dreams. . . . The Koe'kcuc wore women's clothes, did women's work, and were in the position of wives or concubines."
Elsewhere, Westermarck says: "There is no indication that the North American aborigines attached any opprobrium to men who had intercourse with those members of their own sex who had assumed the dress and habits of women. In Kadiak such a companion was, on the contrary, regarded as a great acquisition; and the effeminate men, far from being despised were held in repute by the people, most of them being wizards."
In the South Sea Islands, in 1796-98, Captain James Wilson found men there who were dressed like women and enjoyed certain honors. He expressed surprise that "even their women do not despise these fellows, but form friendships with them." Another traveler in these islands, William Ellis, a missionary, reported that the natives not only enjoyed the sanction of the priests, but even became the direct examples of their divinities.
China and Japan, as well as Malaysia, offer many examples of Buddhist priests, or Bonzes, who have boys attached to the service of the temples. It is the duty of each priest to educate a novice to follow him in the ceremonies, and it is known that the relations between the two are often intimate physically. As long ago as 1549, Francis Xavier, then traveling in Japan, refers to this. He states that the Bonzes admitted the nature of their relations with the youths, but asserted it was no sin. They said, however, that intercourse with women was for them a deadly sin, and even punishable with death. The homosexual relation, on the other hand, was not only harmless, but even commendable. It appears that in all the Buddhist sects in Japan, except the Shinto, celibacy is enforced upon priests, but homosexual relations are not discouraged.
In Hindu mythology, Brahm is often represented as two-sexed. Originally he was the sole Being. But, "delighting not to be alone he wished for the existence of another, and at once he became such, as male and female embraced (united). He caused this his one self to fall in twain."
A Russian traveler by the name of Dawydow writing about 1800, reported that among the Konyagas of Alaska, in the island of Kadiak, there were here men with tatooed chins, who work only as women, who live with the womankind, and like the latter, have husbands, and not infrequently even two. These inverts were called Achnutschiks. They were held in the highest regard in the community, and were generally considered wizards. The native who possessed an Achnutschik, instead of a female wife, was envied. When the parents regarded their son as effeminate in appearance or bearing they often dedicated him in early childhood to the vocation of an Achnutschik. In case parents were disappointed with a son when a daughter was desired, they sometimes made their new-born son an Achnutschik.
Referring to the Pelew Islanders, Frazer (Adonis, Attis and Osiris) attributed the adoption by the priests of female attire to the fact that it often happens that a goddess chooses a man not a woman, for her minister and inspired mouthpiece. When this occurred, the favored man thenceforth was regarded and treated as a woman. He remarked that this pretended change of sex under the inspiration of a female spirit perhaps explains a custom widely spread among savages, in accordance with which some men dress as women and act as women throughout life.
The association of supernatural, or at least super-normal, powers with these inverts is quite extensive, as we have already noticed. Still speaking of the Pelew Islanders, Frazer states: "These unsexed creatures often, perhaps generally, profess the arts of sorcery and healing; they communicate with spirits and are regarded sometimes with awe and sometimes with contempt, as beings of a higher or lower order than common folk. Often they are dedicated or trained to their vocation from childhood. Effeminate sorcerers or priests of this sort are found among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo, the Burgis of South Celebes, the Patagonians of South America. . . . In Madagascar we hear of effeminate men who wore female attire and acted as women, thinking thereby to do God service. In the Kingdom of Congo, there was a sacrificial priest who commonly dressed as a woman and gloried in the title of Grandmother."
HOMO-SEXUALITY AND GENIUS
The list of individuals, famous in art and letters, of homosexual disposition, either active or latent, is an imposing one. The Greek philosophers, playwrights and poets of the classic age have placed themselves on record as devotees of invertism. Some of them have been quoted on previous pages.
Among the men of genius and leadership accredited with being outright homosexuals or having a strong bisexual character, are Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Michael Angelo, Leonardi da Vinci, William of Orange, Charles XII of Sweden, William Rufus, James I, Frederick the Great of Prussia, Ludwig II of Bavaria, Edward II, Nietzsche, Oscar Wilde, etc.
The Uranian temperament has also been attributed to Marlowe, Shakespeare, Walt Whitman, Tennyson, Chopin, and other great poets and musicians.
Charles G. Leland (The Alternate Sex) states that "Great geniuses, men like Goethe, Shakespeare, Shelley, Byron, Darwin, all had the feminine soul very strongly developed in them. . . . As we are continually meeting in cities women who are one-quarter, or one-eighth, or so on, male, so there are in the Inner Self similar half-breeds, all adapting themselves to circumstances with perfect ease. The Greeks recognized that such a being could exist in nature, and so beautified and idealized it as Sappho."
Weininger remarked that Sappho was only the forerunner of a long line of famous women who were either homosexually or bisexually endowed. Among them may be mentioned Queen Christine of Sweden, Catherine II of Russia, Madame Blavatsky, George Sand, Rosa Bonheur, and others.
Pronounced bisexuality in woman is indicated by a strong masculine cast in the constitutional make-up, which is often observed in women who have achieved outstanding success in various fields of activity. Often they never marry.
In man, pronounced bisexuality is evidenced by a large endowment of femininity. There are, however, homosexual types of both sexes who do not give outward evidence of the characteristics of the opposite sex. In these instances, the homosexual state is almost entirely psychic, and would not seem to be constitutionally or organically conditioned.
Among the modern artist-writers and poets who have done great service in interpreting and reconstructing Greek life and ideals—Carpenter cites men like Winkelmann, Goethe, Addington Symonds, Walter Pater, as having a marked strain of this temperament. And this, he adds, has been a service of great value, one which the world would ill have afforded to lose.
CHAPTER IV.
THE HOMO-SEXUAL NEUROSES.
Freud was the first to make clear that the so-called "perversions" and "inversions," which appear in certain adult types in striking forms, belong to the normal sexual life of the young child. They are also seen in veiled forms in many cases of nervous illness.
We have already given some consideration to the analogy between certain forms of sexuality and the narcissism of childhood—having shown that the former trait is a fixation (at least there is a preponderance of psychological evidence to this effect) of the emotional erotic development at a primitive level.
It should be emphasized, as it has been in the preceding pages, that inversion is by no means synonymous with degeneracy. It will, of course, be conceded that there are degenerate homosexuals, just as there are degenerate heterosexuals.
Barring the neurotic disposition, however, inversion is found among persons who otherwise show no marked deviation from the normal.
Not only may a homosexual be a person of normal capability, but he may possess outstanding intellectual qualities and be distinguished by high cultural attainments.
The eminence achieved by a number of inverts has already been referred to; as also have been the prevalence of general homosexual practices among the people of ancient nations at the heights of their culture. Among the latter, as we have seen, inversion becomes an institution endowed with important functions.
From the standpoint of anatomical development and the libido, there are frequently found in the inverted a diminution of the sexual impulse, and a slight stunting of the generative organs. However, this is not preponderately the rule, so it must be recognized that inversion and somatic hermaphroditism (bodily bisexual characters) are quite independent of each other.
Freud has demonstrated how neurosis is definitely connected with some phase of the sexual instinct—often the suppression of its normal manifestations. In addition to that, he has shown that the symptoms of neurosis only too frequently represent the converted expression of impulses which in a broader sense may be designated as perverse, if they could manifest themselves directly in phantasies and acts without deviating from consciousness. The inference, therefore, is that the symptoms are partially formed at the cost of abnormal sexuality. "The neurosis is, so to say, the negative of the perversion."
Psychoanalysis has brought to light the fact that the well-known fancies of perverts which under favorable conditions are changed into contrivances, the delusional fears of paranoiacs which are in a hostile manner projected on others, and the unconscious fancies of hysterics, agree as to content often in the minutest details.
This illustrates that the unconscious mental processes of all persons have much that is held in common, based upon biological promptings that are the common property of mankind. The varied ways in which they manifest themselves are due to the different trends of disposition, mental aptitude, environmental influences, etc.
According to the psychoanalytic hypothesis, the sexual impulse of the psychoneurotic shows all the aberrations of morbid sexual life. This principle may be summarized as follows (after Freud):
(a) In all the neurotics without exception there is evident feelings of inversion in the unconscious psychic life, fixation of libido on persons of the same sex. It is impossible, without a deep and searching discussion, adequately to appreciate the significance of this factor for the formation of the picture of the disease; but it may be safely asserted that the unconscious propensity to inversion is never wanting and is particularly of immense service in explaining male hysteria.
(b) All the inclinations to anatomical transgression can be demonstrated in psychoneurotics in the unconscious and as symptom-creators. Of special frequency and intensity are those which impart to the mouth and the mucous membrane of the anus the role of genitals.
(c) The partial desires which usually appear in contrasting pairs, play a very prominent role among the symptom-creators in psychoneuroses. They are known as carriers of new sexual aims, such as peeping mania, exhibitionism and the actively and passively formed impulses of cruelty. The contribution of the last is indispensable for the understanding of the morbid nature of the symptoms; it almost regularly controls some portion of the social behavior of the patient. The transformation of love into hatred, of tenderness into hostility, which is character of paranoics, takes place by means of the union of cruelty with the libido.
The significance of the erogenous zones in relation to inversion is important. Moll's concept, which divides the sexual impulse into the impulse of contrectation and detumescence, is useful in this field. (Contrectation signifies a desire to touch the skin; detumescence the subsidence of the state of physical sexual preparedness.)
"In the perversions, which claim sexual significance for the oral cavity and the anal opening," as Freud remarks, "the part played by the erogenous zone is quite evident. It behaves in every way like a part of the sexual apparatus. In hysteria, these parts of the body, as well as the tracts of mucous membrane proceeding from them, become the seat of new sensations and innervating changes in a manner similar to the genitals when under the excitement of normal sexual processes."
HOMO-SEXUAL PANIC.
Dr. Edward J. Kempf refers to the pressure of uncontrollable perverse cravings as "acute homosexual panic," which is frequently observed whenever men or women are grouped alone for prolonged periods, as in army camps, aboard ships, on exploring expeditions, in prisons, asylums, and schools.
The acute panic of the personality is due to the perverse sexual cravings which threaten to overcome the ego, and disestablish the individual's self-control. At the same time, the affections for winning social esteem are pushed into an eccentric adjustment. The weakness of the ego may be attributed to fatigue, debilitating illness, loss of the love object, homesickness, misfortunes, imposition on the part of a superior, or erotic companions. As the individual shows his eccentricities and irritability, he is often teased and tormented by his fellows. With this there comes a loss of social influence, which develops a sense of inferiority, or strengthens the feeling of inferiority that already exists.
The attempt to overcome the fear of inferiority spurs the subject on to intense compensating efforts which, however, because of their eccentric character, further increases the antagonism. Thus we have a vicious circle in the realm of the emotions and affective nature, which gradually becomes a persecution. The erotic individual, under these circumstances, as the perverse sexual impulses tend to force him into further danger, becomes panic-stricken.
The preverse craving causes delusions about, and hallucinations of, situations, objects and people which tend to gratify the craving. Still, Kempf says "The pressure of the perverse craving occurs despite the social honor and social future of the individual. Horrified, he is swept off his feet into a hell of hallucinated temptations and demons of distractions."
With regard to the physiological reactions of fear to painful contact stimuli, this authority states they are quite like the fear reactions to horrible, painful hallucinated stimuli. The mechanism of the terrifying dream, for instance, like the hallucination, is first an effective disturbance due to the repressed autonomic tensions becoming released by the relaxation of self-control (as in sleep). During sleep indigestible food will cause increased effort on the part of the stomach and intestines. This produces consciousness of unpleasant sensory images which may coalesce into a horrible perception, like black dots forming a picture. This horrible image, in turn, causes the fear reaction. "The next stage would be to compensate by awaking, by flight or counter-attack. When the erotic, hallucination is felt to be an external reality, and no defense is found, panic ensues."
The panic may be more or less serious, lasting from a few hours to several months. The disturbances to the physical processes and the bodily economy as a whole, attending such dissociations of personality, may be very serious. All these ill results, under the given circumstances, are traceable to fear.
The definite physiological effects of this uncontrolled emotion—fear—are increased blood-pressure and pulse-rate, increase of adrenin and thyroid secretions, increase of blood sugar and decrease of the digestive and assimilative properties of the stomach and intestines; also decrease of heterosexual potency, and pronounced increase of trial and error movements of the skeletal appartus—hence, restlessness, irritability, insomnia, etc.
On the other hand, the acute dissociation of the personality, in both sexes, may become chronic and run a protracted course, varying from several weeks to many years. Final recovery may ensue, or (1) the condition may become permanent without further deterioration, or (2) the condition may pursue a course of progressive deterioration depending upon the negative nature of the transference and adjustment to the erotic pressure.
A frequent accompaniment is the development of a vigorous, persistent counter-attack of hatred, which becomes directed against the social conventions. Its animus is aimed particularly against those to whom social obligations bind the subject (as parents, mate, offspring, employer, etc.) because they are repressing influences. The climax of this is a loss of social adaptation.
Kempf believes that the tendency to homosexuality in males has a dual determination. Not only are homosexual associations attractive, but there is an insurmountable affective (fear) resistance to heterosexual potency which becomes aroused by the amorous approach of the female. Through some affective mechanism, she, like the "serpent-headed Meduza, freezes his soul. Her sexuality horrifies instead of fascinates."
Anxiety and depression may develop quickly after a heterosexual failure in this type of male. Such reactions may be characterized by suicidal impulses due apparently to an irresistible regression to the mother. The subject feels that she cannot give him up, and he, being helpless to free himself, in order to become devoted to another woman, finds life is not worth living.
In summarizing his conception of this disorder, Kempf considers the acute homosexual panic a distinct stage in the psychosis. He maintains it may be diagnosed as readily as paresis by certain cardinal conditions: (1) panic and the autonomic reactions which accompany grave fear; (2) the defensive compensation against the compulsion to seek or submit to assault; (3) the symbols used by the erotic affect and the disturbances of sensation it causes.
The latter are complained of as visions, voices, electric injections, "dopy" feelings, "poison" and "filth" in the food, seductive and hypnotic influences, irresistible trance states, crucifixion, etc. It is necessary to estimate the significance of the systems in a neutral environment and the significance of the various symbols used.
As previously stated, the condition of acute homosexual panic is chiefly manifested in men and women who are grouped for prolonged periods away from members of the opposite sex—and is considerably different in its symptoms from the inverted sexuality which, for whatever reasons, develops in the man or woman living in a more normal environment.
With regard to the prospect for overcoming the disorder, Kempf states that the prognosis of homosexual panic in a soldier or sailor is usually favorable for that episode, but the future of that individual is most insecure unless he obtains insight and a fortunate sexual adjustment.
In a series of several hundred cases which have been recognized in a period of half a dozen years, most of the cases recovered. The occurrence of panic, later, among men who secretly re-enlisted in some branch of the government's service and were returned to the hospital, as well as the return several years later of men who had profoundly deteriorated after having been discharged as social recoveries, shows that the recurrence of panic results from inability to control the tendency to become perverse, that is, biologically abnormal. "This abortive tendency seems eventually to become dominant and incurable."
A NEURO-(PSYCHO-) PATHIC STATE.
Krafft-Ebing, already referred to, has described the peculiar sexual feeling of the invert as a functional sign of degeneration, and as a partial manifestation of a neuro-(psycho-) pathic state, in most cases (he believed) heriditary. He has catalogued the following characteristics as signs of this disorder:
1. The sexual life of individuals thus organized manifests itself, as a rule, abnormally early, and thereafter with abnormal power. Not infrequently still other perverse manifestations are presented besides the abnormal method of sexual satisfaction, which in itself is conditioned by the peculiar sexual feeling.
2. The psychical love manifest in these men is, for the most part, exaggered and exalted in the same way as their sexual instinct is manifested in consciousness, with a strange and even compelling force.
3. By the side of the functional signs of degeneration attending antipathic sexual feeling are found other functional, and in many cases anatomical, evidences of degeneration.
4. Neurosis (hysteria, neurasthenia, epileptoid states, etc.) co-exist. Almost invariably the existence of temporary or lasting neurasthenia may be proved. As a rule, this is constitutional, having its root in congenital conditions. It is awakened and maintained by masturbation or enforced abstinence.
(We have already considered the fallacious reasoning of ascribing homosexuality to masturbation. W. J. F.)
5. In the majority of cases, psychical anomalies (brilliant endowment in art, especially music, poetry, etc., by the side of bad intellectual powers or original eccentricity) are present, which may extend to pronounced conditions of mental degeneration (imbecility, moral insanity). In many urnings, either temporary or permanent insanity of a degenerative character (pathological emotional states, periodical insanity, paranoia, etc.) makes its appearance.
6. In almost all cases where an examination of the physical and mental peculiarities of the ancestors and blood relations has been possible, neurosis, psychosis, degenerative signs, etc., have been found in the families.
It is Krafft-Ebing's view that the study of antipathic sexual feeling points directly to anomalies of the cerebral organization of the afflicted individuals. "The very fact that in these cases, with few exceptions, the sexual glands are found quite normal, anatomically and functionally, seems to favor this assumption."
Of all the old school psychiatrists of standing, it seems Krafft-Ebing's ideas are the most marked by superficial generalizations and rash guesses to account for unknown factors. In contrast to the concept of homosexuality as purely a neuro-(psycho-)pathic state, or "degenerative taint," we will consider in the next chapter the attitude of Edward Carpenter on this subject. Carpenter is distinguished by his calm reasoning powers and far-sighted vision, and while he perhaps shows a partiality to the urning that is beyond the casual student, his views must be considered in any fair and impartial study of the subject.
CHAPTER V.
SUPERIOR TRAITS OF INVERTS.
Edward Carpenter, in his thoughtful treatise on homosexuals—whom he calls the Intermediate Sex—justly maintains that it is impossible, by a sweeping gesture to dismiss these types as good or bad, simply because they are different.
The subtleties and complexities of nature cannot be dispatched in this off-hand manner.
As he expresses it, "the great probability is that, as in any other class of human beings, there will be among these too, good and bad, high and low, worthy and unworthy—some perhaps exhibiting through their double temperament a rare and beautiful flower of humanity, others a perverse and tangled ruin."
It is Carpenter's opinion that the defect of the male Uranian, or Urning, is not sensuality—but rather sentimentality. The lower, more ordinary types of Urning are often extremely sentimental; the superior type strangely, almost incredibly emotional; but neither as a rule (though, of course, there must be exceptions) are so sensual as the average normal man.
"The immense capacity of emotional love represents, of course, a great driving force. Whether in the individual or in society, love is eminently creative. It is their great genius for attachment which gives to the best Uranian types their penetrating influence and activity, and which often makes them beloved and accepted far and wide even by those who know nothing of their inner mind.
"How many so-called philanthropists of the best kind (we need not mention names) have been inspired by the Uranian temperament, the world will probably never know. And in all walks of life, the great number and influence of folk of this disposition, and the distinguished place they already occupy, is only realized by those who are more or less behind the scenes. It is probable also that it is this genius for emotional love which gives to the Uranians their remarkable youthfulness."
With these unusual qualities, amounting in their finest expressions, to extraordinary gifts—containing as they do a double measure of human values, both of the man and of the woman—Carpenter believes that these people have a special field of work as reconcilers and interpreters of the two sexes to each other.
Thus, it is probable that the superior Urnings will become in affairs of the heart, to a large extent, the teachers of future society; and if so, their influence will tend to the realization and expression of an attachment less exclusively sensual than the average of today, and to the diffusion of this in all directions.
To call people of such temperament "morbid," according to this authority, is of no use. Such a term, in fact, is absurdly inapplicable to many, who are among the most amiable and worthy members of society. Certainly, it brings no solution to the problem in question, and "only amounts to marking down for disparagement a fellow creature who has already considerable difficulties to contend with."
It is a great mistake, he argues, to suppose that their attachments are necessarily sexual, or connected with sexual acts. On the contrary, they are often purely emotional in their character; and to confuse Uranians, as is often done, with libertines having no law but curiosity in self-indulgence is to do them a great wrong.
It is undoubtedly true that their special temperament may sometimes cause them difficulty in regard to their sexual relations. But then, all types have more or less difficulty in making sexual adjustments—so while the homosexual has some special problems to meet in this respect—the heterosexual also has his problems which not infrequently lead to dire results.
The difficulties in both cases, of course, are due in no small degree to the obstacles put in the way by others, through lack of understanding. This is both a social and individual problem.
With respect to the personal idiosyncrasies of the urnings, the male tends to be of a rather gentle, emotional disposition, with defects, if such exist, in the direction of subtlety, evasiveness, timidity, vanity., etc. The female, on the other hand, is just the opposite, being active, fiery, bold and bluntly truthful, with defects running to brusqueness and coarseness.
The mind of the male urning (characteristic of its feminine bias) is generally intuitive and instinctive in its perceptions, with more or less artistic feeling. In extreme types, we find excessive sentimentality, an individual mincing in gait and manners, something of a chatter-box, with a tendency to be skilful with the needle and in woman's work, sometimes taking pleasure in dressing in women's clothes.
In the case of the female, we note the opposite characteristics. Her mind is more logical, scientific and precise than usual with the normal woman. So marked are these general characteristics, observes Carpenter, that sometimes by means of them (thought not an infallible guide) the nature of the boy or girl can be detected in childhood, before full development has taken place. The importance of being able to do this is readily apparent, if an understanding and sympathetic attitude is brought to bear on the matter.
As Dr. Moll, the well known German authority, has pointed out, the extreme characteristics do not by any means show themselves in all urnings. Though one may find this or that indication in a great many cases, yet it cannot be denied that a very large percentage of the males, perhaps by far the majority of them, do not exhibit pronounced effeminacy.
Considering the more "normal" type of Uranian male, it is not unusual to find a man who, while possessing thoroughly masculine powers of mind and physique, combines with them the more emotional soul nature of the woman. Sometimes this is present in a notable degree.
Such men are often muscular and well built and not noticeably different in external structure and bodily carriage from others of their own sex. Emotionally, however, they are extremely complex, sensitive, tender, sympathetic and loving—and, as has been said, "full of storm and stress, of ferment and fluctuation of the heart."
While the logical faculty may or may not, in their case, be well developed, intuition is always strongly in evidence. Like a woman they read characters at a glance, and know, without knowing how, what is transpiring in the mental processes of others. Naturally, men of this kind have a peculiar aptitude for nursing and administering to the needs of people. A Swiss writer on this subject has expressed himself thus: "Happy, indeed, is that man who has won a real Urning for his friend—he walks on roses, without ever having to fear the thorns." And he added: "Can there ever be a more perfect sick nurse than an Urning?"
The invert has a strongly developed artist nature, with the artist's perception and sensibility. De Joux, who writes on the whole favorably of the Uranian men and women, says of the former: "They are enthusiastic for poetry and music, are often eminently skilful in the fine arts, and are overcome with emotion and sympathy at the least occurrence. Their sensitiveness, their endless tenderness for children, their love of flowers, their great pity for beggars and crippled folk are truly womanly." In another passage, he indicates the organic base of the artist nature in the following words: "The nerve system of many an Urning is the finest and the most complicated musical instrument in the service of the interior personality that can be imagined."
It does not appear justified to assume that men of this kind despise women, the general belief to the contrary notwithstanding. In previous chapters, we have read the evidence of the psychiatrist, who testified to this alleged antagonistic sentiment. But after all, the psychiatrist and neurologist get the sick and pathologic cases, and rarely the better kind, so while the opinions of these specialists have great value as supplementary evidence in the consideration of homosexuality, they should not be accepted without reservation or such modification as may be necessary in the light of fuller knowledge of the subject.
Naturally, the male Urning is not inclined to fall in love with a woman, but that they are drawn near to women seems logical as it is characteristic of similar types to have much in common, such as sympathetic interests, etc. And, of course, the male Urning and the normal woman have a great deal in common in the sphere of spiritual and emotional interests and understanding.
Carpenter states in this connection, "it would seem they often feel a singular appreciation and understanding of the emotional needs and destinies of the other sex, leading in many cases to a genuine though what is called "Platonic' friendship. There is little doubt that they are often instinctively sought after by women who, without suspecting the real cause, are conscious of a sympathetic chord in the homogenic which they miss in the normal man."
De Joux confirms this in these words: "It would be a mistake to suppose that all Urnings must be woman haters. Quite the contrary. They are not seldom their faithfulest friends, the truest allies and most convinced defenders of women."
Havelock Ellis in Chapter VI of his "Sexual Inversion" also scouts the idea that the Uranian temperament is necessarily morbid, and states that the tendency should be considered an anomaly rather than a disease. He makes this interesting observation on the subject, comparing the invert to the "sport" or variation in the animal and vegetable world: "Thus in sexual inversion we have what may fairly be called a 'sport' or variation, one of those organic aberrations which we see throughout living nature in plants and in animals."
And Ellis writes, with reference to the artistic proclivities of the invert: "An examination of my cases reveals the interesting fact that thirty-two of them, or sixty-eight per cent, possess artistic aptitude in varying degrees.
"Galton found, from the investigation of nearly one thousand persons, that the general average showing artistic taste in England is only about thirty per cent. It must be said that my figures are probably below the truth, as no special point was made of investigating the matter, and also that in many cases their artistic aptitudes are of high order. With regard to the special avocations of my cases, it must, of course, be said that no occupation furnishes a safeguard against inversion. There are, however, certain occupations to which inverts are specially attracted. Acting is certainly one of the chief of these. Three of my cases belong to the dramatic profession, and others have marked dramatic ability. Art, again, in its various forms, and music, exercise much attraction. In my experience, however, literature is the avocation to which inverts seem to feel chiefly called, and that moreover in which they may find the highest degrees of success and reputation. At least half a dozen of my cases are successful men of letters."
The Uranian, although quite invariably high strung and sensitive, is not by any means always an impractical dreamer. He is usually a dreamer, to be sure, but not infrequently he has the capacity to transform his dreams into actuality. He may even show extraordinary ability in the business world. While he is usually not militantly aggressive—war with its bloodshed, horrors and destruction is somewhat foreign to his temperament—there are exceptions.
Some of the mighty military commanders of history have had a strong Uranian strain—among them may be mentioned Alexander the Great, Caesar, Charles XII of Sweden, Frederick II of Prussia, etc. When the capacity for high organizing ability and power of command is present, the potent bisexual disposition vouchsafes a temperament that arouses the enthusiasm and assures the personal attachment of the troops. All of this goes a long way to making a formidable commander—and in the olden days of personal combat, it was a well-night invincible one.
Carpenter calculates that not less than ten per cent of the English kings—from the time of the Norman conquest to the present day—have shown a decidedly homogenic temperament. (This authority prefers to use the term homogenic, from two root words, both Greek, i. e., "homos," same, and "genoc," sex, instead of homosexual.)
Three of these kings, namely, William Rufus, Edward II and James I were homosexual in a high degree—possibly enough so as to be classed as Urnings. Others, like William III, had a marked strain of the same temperament.
Of these monarchs, William Rufus and William III, were in their different ways men of great courage and personal force. James I was not a creditable character—and while the term degenerate might be applicable to him—it would be equally fitting to several others of the royal line.
It is also apparent that one of England's greatest queens, Elizabeth, had a highly developed homosexual disposition, enough to bring out in no uncertain manner those characteristics that are usually associated with the masculine gender. She was inordinately resourceful, independent, assertive—and showed no particular erotic leanings toward the opposite sex.
Referring to the common belief that a male who experiences love for his own sex must be despicable, degraded, depraved, vicious, and incapable of humane or generous sentiments, J. Addington Symonds (A Problem of Modern Ethics) remarks that "If Greek history did not contradict this supposition, a little patient enquiry into contemporary manners would suffice to remove it."
De Joux, who has already been quoted on the subject, expresses the finer sensibilities of the superior type of Urning, and his consciousness of the same, in the following words: "It is true that we are often inferior to normal men in force of will, worldly wisdom, and sense of duty; but on the other hand, in depth and delicacy of feeling and every virtue of the heart, we are far superior. We cannot love women, but we lament with them, and help them on the hearth and by the cradle, in need and loneliness, as their most unselfish friends. . . . We do not despise women because they are weak, for we are much clearer-sighted, much less prejudiced than the so-called lords of creation, much nobler, more helpful, and just minded than they. . . . Anyhow, if either of the sexes has cause to withhold its respect in any degree from the other—which has the most cause? Say what you will of them, the second and third sexes—women and Urnings—are ever so much better than the brutal egotistical men, who today are plunged in grossest materialism; for, with whatever corruption, both the former are still of purer heart, easier kindled towards whatever is good, and more capable of genuine enthusiasm and love of their fellows than the latter."
In a sense, then, we may say that the so-called Intermediate Sex is older and nearer to nature than the differentiated male and female sexes. It may be considered a modern holdover, or vestige, of the bisexual character typical of primitive beings and organisms. But when found in the genus homo when not debauched by a vicious environment or distorted by an unfavorable heredity—it may, as we have seen, reach the highest stage of human fruition.
SANITY IN SEX.
By WILLIAM J. FIELDING
An illuminating exposition of the sex question from the standpoint of vital individual, social and economic problems. Discusses Fig-Leaf Morality, Birth Control, Psycho-Analysis, Sex Hygiene, Sex Knowledge for Parents, Children and from the intimate side of Marriage, and many other phases of sexual phenomena, from an original and thought-provoking angle. It is replete with concrete illustrations of individual and social tragedies of the most striking character, and notable examples of official hypocrisy and prudery that are nothing short of criminal. In this respect the book is a mine of facts and information for all students of social and economic conditions. But it is more than critical of the short-comings of society; it is helpful and constructive to the individual. The volume is highly endorsed by many European and American authorities, including Havelock Ellis, Margaret Sanger, Dr. Maud Thompson, Dr. Lee Alexander Stone, August Claessens, etc.
Handsomely bound in cloth, 333 pages. An indispensable volume for those interested in the vital urge of sex.
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- ↑ From Uranos, heaven; his idea being that the Uranian love was of a higher order than the normal attachment.
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